


Should've Run Faster

by PhenixFleur



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Monster Falls, Bill is an asshole, Dark, Dehumanization, Depressing, Gen, Human Bill Cipher, Hunter Bill, Kidnapping, Poor Dipper, Potential Stockholm Syndrome, What else is new?, deer!dipper
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-03-29 19:07:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3907294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhenixFleur/pseuds/PhenixFleur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A routine trek into the woods for researching purposes takes a disastrous turn when Dipper finds himself on the business end of a hunting rifle and in the gloved hands of a hunter intent on keeping him for his own. Monster Falls AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. where the real monsters are

**Author's Note:**

> Hoo boy. There’s *no* fluff here. It’s all hunter!Bill being a high caliber asshole and it's all downhill from the start, so if you’re used to my fluff steer clear. Deerper’s a couple of years older, and he and Mabel are still stuck in Gravity Falls because he hasn't figured out how to deal with the stream issue and no one’s going to let a deer kid and a mermaid on a bus no matter how many extra seats you pay for. Originally posted [here](http://bipolar-berry-crunch.tumblr.com/post/117597269677/fanfic-shouldve-run-faster) on Tumblr/inspired by a piece of Hunter Bill fanart linked in the post. Additional tags incoming. It's dark, by the way. Did I mention that?

Thus far being a cervitaur wasn’t going  _too_ badly for Dipper. 

Granted, there was the initial period of getting used to having an extra set of legs and the increase in appetite and  _other_ biological changes not suited for polite conversation and his flight or…well, flight instinct being off the charts… 

Okay, being a cervitaur had taken some getting used to. 

Two years had drifted by since discovering that damn stream that drastically changed their lives (as well as temporarily stranding Mabel and himself in Oregon), and since then he’d adjusted to feeling like running away all the time, overcome the desire to faint while in the presence of anyone that might have had designs on eating him if they’d failed to retain most of their humanity, and strengthened his resolve to find a cure for himself and the rest of the town. 

On the upside, school was little more bearable when all of your classmates were just as weird as you were. 

Regardless, life had settled into a sort of predictability, however strange that might be when you and everyone else you knew resembled a motley crew of horror movie rejects. 

So when an unassuming foray into a familiar section of the woods resulted in him running for his life with his heart slamming against his ribcage and a damn near intolerable burning sensation in his side (he was lucky the bullet had merely grazed him) while some psychopath with a rifle that ran entirely too fast to be fully human chased him down, it really didn’t seem quite fair.

The hunter pursuing him was certainly skilled, somehow managing to bypass Dipper’s heightened perception while he pored over the journal, huffing in frustration; the young cervitaur didn’t even notice his presence until the pain bloomed in his flank, too close to his left hindleg for comfort and sent him fleeing in a random direction in a state of total panic. He’d dropped the book somewhere back there, but with the sound of heavy footsteps so close behind he didn’t have the presence of mind to worry about it yet. His hooves kicked up clods of loose soil and his budding antlers tangled with the dangling foliage. He didn’t know where he was going, simply that he needed to  _run run run_.

The ground beneath his hooves became slightly less compact, still damp and pliant from the rain a few weeks before - and Dipper immediately found himself falling, something looping around one of his hindlegs while something uncomfortably sharp dug into the flesh above his hoof. He cried out in frustration, simultaneously attempting to struggle to his feet and shake his leg free. 

An eerie silence only broken by the sound of him breathing heavily and flailing helplessly overtook the immediate area; the ambient noises of nature ceased as did the footsteps, and Dipper’s heart froze within his chest as he met the gaze of the predator cornering him. The guy appeared to be human, although something about the unholy light shining in his golden eyes struck Dipper as distinctly supernatural. His attire wasn’t that of what he’d expect from a typical hunter, either: no orange cap rested upon his ridiculously perfect blonde hair, and in fact his entire classy ensemble employed only black, yellow, or white. If he wasn’t on the verge of passing out Dipper might have made some commentary about his resemblance to a bee - but this bee had already stung him once and the hunting rifle strapped across his back held the threat of more.

“Gotcha.”

His voice literally dripped with malicious intent, and Dipper lost it, resuming flailing and tearing up handfuls of damp grass. His newly gained instincts kicked in in the form of prepping him for a last ditch effort to defend himself. His antlers were still less than a foot long, but he could do some real damage with his hooves if the man got too close.

“Leave me alone,” he stammered, far less confident than he’d like. 

The hunter smirked at him, approaching him with carefully measured steps and closing the distance between them; Dipper prepared to lash out at him with his forelegs…and paused at the pressure of the rifle’s muzzle against his throat. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I mean, you  _can_ , but it’s not a good idea.” The hunter winked at him. “Trust me.”

Dipper’s voice dissolved in his throat; his ears slicked back against his scalp in terror. He’d never felt more like prey than he did now, not even with a mindless Wendy menacing him before regaining control of herself, and he remained silent while the hunter pushed him back down, weighting him down with the heel of his boot as he deftly bound the terrified cervitaur’s arms behind his back. He hummed to himself while he worked, some lively tune that made Dipper shudder. 

“Don’t do this,” he whimpered, flinching. “Just let me go, and…”

“Shhh.” A gloved hand clad in black leather seized his shirt collar while the other pressed itself against his lips. “I don’t bargain with prey.”

“I’m not prey!” Dipper protested. “I’m human!”  _Mostly_.

“I hunted you down, didn’t I?” The hunter shrugged his shoulders. “That’s the literal definition of prey. Anyway…who said humanity made you exempt?”

Dipper’s eyes widened. “I-”

A hand clamped over his mouth, silencing him. “Now, now. Shut up while I figure out what to do with you.”

He hauled the effectively incapacitated Dipper (after freeing his leg from the snare) a few feet away to a sturdy-looking stump, releasing his hold on him and looking down at him appraisingly. “Nice.” The toe of his boot dug into Dipper’s side, reminding him of the gash in his flank. “Haven’t been missing any meals, huh?  _Beautiful_ coat, too. You’re a real catch, kid!”

Fingers traced along his antlers, sending an involuntary chill down Dipper’s spine. “Too bad you’re not a little older. These are kinda pathetic.” The hunter sounded disappointed. “Guess there’s no point to lopping your head off and mounting it on the wall.”

Dipper’s stomach ached, and he lowered his head, chewing on his lip anxiously. He wanted Mabel. He wanted his sister and his grand uncle and his friends. The hunter stroked his ears in a parody of affection. “Scared? You should have run faster. Or maybe don’t wander around in the woods alone.” The hand in his hair seized a handful, forcibly tilting his head so he could see the hunter’s teeth. They reminded him of Wendy’s, but sharper. “That’s where the real monsters are.”

The teeth gnawing on his lower lip pierced the skin, and Dipper tasted his own blood.

“Let’s see.” The man lowered himself onto the stump, regarding his catch thoughtfully. “I  _could_ put a bullet in your skull and skin you. Or I could do it while you’re still alive. Deer hide is all the rage these days, y'know?”

Even on the verge of having an  _actual_  heart attack, Dipper had to roll his eyes at that one. He just  _had_  to be captured by a psychopath with a sense of humor.

“I made that one up!” The hunter chuckled. “Point stands, though. Maybe I’ll tie you down and skin you. No one can hear you out here so I don’t even have to bother gagging you! Ever thought about going under the knife?”

A trickle of blood ran down Dipper’s chin. He was shivering as if it wasn’t a million degrees outside, and he no longer noticed the pain in his lip  _or_ his side. 

“Oh! I’ve got it!” Dipper went perfectly still, watching the hunter reach for a small hatchet at his side. He lightly tapped the blade against one of Dipper’s ankles. “Did you know you can make oil out of deer hooves? That’s pretty useful, isn’t it? I don’t even know what it’s used for. Some kind of lubrication, maybe?” The man paused for a few seconds before adding, with a mischievous grin. “For a gun, kid! Get your mind out of the gutter.”

Dipper decided that he hated this guy. Even if he wasn’t trussed up and on the verge of death, he’d probably still hate this guy, because he wasn’t just a psychopath. He was also an asshole.

Fear won out over hatred, though, and his voice wavered as he spoke again, desperate. “Please let me go, I’ll-”

The tip of the hatchet landed on his injured lip, just above the torn flesh. All levity drained from the hunter’s voice. “Maybe I’ll cut your tongue out first since you need some help with learning how to  _shut up_.”

Dipper shook his head ever so slightly, sighing inwardly with relief when the hunter buried the hatchet in the stump behind him. “That’s better. Some people shy away from using  _everything_ you get from a kill. They let so much go to waste! It’s a shame. You’ve got a lot of meat on you. Young and tender and  _juicy_.” He licked his lips, and Dipper hung his head again, unable to look any longer. “Wait! I’ll carve off just a little bit so you can have a taste, too! I bet you’re delicious. The kind of meal that should be  _savored_  instead of devoured.”

Dipper began to cry, shoulders shaking as he wept. He’d give anything to be with his family again, but the chances of that happening were rapidly dwindling.

“They say fear has a negative effect on flavor but I kinda like it.” The hand scratched behind his ears again, as if he were a dog. “So what’ll it be? I’m up for anything, really. Any input? This  _does_  involve you.”

“I don’t want to die,” Dipper whispered. He glanced up at the hunter, recoiling at the wicked grin on his face. 

“No one ever does, kid. Then again…you’re a rare catch, aren’t ya?  _Probably_  one of a kind.” Dipper didn’t like the sound of that. There was a sadistic undertone to the hunter’s voice, and it only intensified as he continued. “It’d be a waste to use some  _thing_ ,” with emphasis on the insinuation that Dipper’s former humanity had no bearing on his opinion whatsoever, “so special for something so mundane, wouldn’t it? I suppose…I’ve always wanted a pet.”

Dipper broke down, pleading almost incoherently. “No, let me go home, please, I won’t tell anyone, I’ll…”

“Nope! Should’ve run faster!” The hunter reached into the knapsack next to the stump that Dipper had somehow missed, rummaging around for a minute before withdrawing a black leather band attached to a chain by way of a large metal loop. “Lucky for you I came prepared! Like it? Guess what kind of leather it is!”

Dipper stared at him, blankly.

“I said,  _guess_.”

Speaking was a real effort, but Dipper’s tongue stumbled over the word. “D…de…deer.”

“You got it!” The hunter said cheerfully. “Eh, I might as well come clean. I’ve been watching you for awhile now. I never intended to kill you. You’re worth too much, and I’ve got plans for you  _and_  this town. Oh yeah, I forgot to thank you!” He reached into the knapsack once more, and Dipper’s heart faltered at the sight of the journal in his hands. “I’ve been looking for this for awhile. Good thing you found it for me, huh?”

Dipper held his breath as the hunter leaned forward, draping the collar over his neck and buckling it. "Good, it fits! By the way…” He grabbed the chain, tugging Dipper forward and leering at him. “You wanna know what’ll happen if you ever run away?”

The man leaned in close, cruel fangs gleaming in the afternoon sunlight, and the part of Dipper’s mind that was all deer provided the mental image of those teeth tearing into his neck, that creepy otherworldy voice laughing while the light faded from his eyes. “I’ll find you,” he vowed. “You can’t run from me, or hide. I’ll drag you back and make you regret  _ever_ stepping foot in these woods? Got it?”

Dipper’s small chest heaved as he sobbed; he wasn’t entirely sure the reprieve from death was worth it, and he wished his last memory of Mabel wasn’t of himself snapping at her for splashing him as he walked past one of her pools that morning. He ignored the sensation of the hunter stroking his hair with a gentle touch completely at odds with his brutality. 

“Don’t worry, Dipper. I’ll take  _good_ care of you.” 


	2. Trophies (Part One)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dipper gets used to his new home. He doesn't like it very much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was supposed to be a single chapter, but I decided to split it up once it hit 8k so I could revise the second half - seeing that I've also decided to do the Ravenstag!Dipper thing I mentioned a million years ago that no one remembers. It got darker, by the way. There's nowhere to go but down. :D

The first couple of days were an absolute nightmare, and by the time the week drew to a much anticipated close Dipper knew he had to make a break for it as soon as an opportunity presented itself despite the standing threats of punishment for doing so.

Over the past couple of years of adjusting to his new (and not necessarily improved) form, a sort of duality had arisen that posed a problem on a regular basis: balancing the side of himself that was still fully human and the side of himself that wasn't anymore. Dipper suspected that the issue lay in his having possessed a fully developed sense of self as a human being for a good eight or nine years after gaining full consciousness. It meant the animal instincts were included as an afterthought, but that didn't make them any less difficult to ignore every time his legs forgot that there were now four of them and sent him stumbling into the wall or his entire body tensed up at the sound of gunfire while watching action movies or certain foods that he'd loved before having the lower half of an herbivore struck him as unappealing despite still being capable of digesting them. Human dignity and habits clashed with the basic instincts of animals when one identity followed the other instead of developing simultaneously.

Regardless of the animal traits tacked onto his psyche like a sticky note and all the fur Dipper was still human, and as such being dragged along through the woods like a stubborn dog on a leash was both mortifying and infuriating. The collar wasn't painful or even physically uncomfortable in the slightest, but from a psychological standpoint it felt like a noose looped around his throat. The chain was a good deal less humiliating - its presence at least was remotely familiar. It reminded him of the jailed chain gangs in old timey black and white cartoons he and Mabel sometimes watched. A chain could be a human thing. A collar wasn't.

He forcibly ignored the urge to dig his hooves into the soil beneath them and resist the chain tugging him forward at a  brisk pace that was difficult to keep up with given that his arms were still tied behind his back. The sight of the gun slung over the man's shoulder as well as the now actively painful graze along his flank dissuaded Dipper from giving him any additional reason to use it. He allowed the hunter to haul him further and further away from the world he knew, occasionally literally yanking his chain for what appeared to be the hell of it (and because the guy was clearly an asshole; terror did little to eclipse that opinion) and causing him to falter in his hoofsteps. He made a point of concentrating on his surroundings in an attempt to spot any noteworthy landmarks. He'd never ventured this deeply into the massive stand of evergreens that seemed to grow thicker and more closely set together - it felt as if they were trying to swallow him up, trap him within their depths where no one would ever find him.

He'd exhausted himself crying earlier, but the thought was worth a few strained tears anyway.

After walking for what might have been an hour or an entire year for all he was concerned, the treeline broke, yielding a weathered homestead that was a little too large to be considered a cabin. It appeared to be constructed of entirely of wood, rough lumber likely darkened through exposure to the elements. Outside what Dipper decided was a hunting lodge were scattered implements for living off the grid, including a lumber pile with yet another axe buried in a stump beside it. A deep sense of foreboding took hold of him while taking stock of the area. It was surrounded by looming pine trees on all sides, forming a ring around the black monolith.

The hunter noticed his apprehension, pausing and tugging him forward with a harsh jerk of the lead in his hands. "Home sweet home, kid! Whaddya think?"

Dipper avoided eye contact, resuming chewing on his lip anxiously. This was rapidly shaping up to be the worst day of his life.

The compulsion to push human logic aside and put up some form of resistance grew stronger as they approached the lodge. Now he could see evidence of habitation, and he didn't like what he saw. The entire scene smacked of a cheesy horror movie revolving around some masked psychopath in the woods with a tortured past stalking oblivious teenagers, but this was real, and this was happening.

The reality of the situation caused him to halt at the foot of the porch stairs, almost losing his balance. "No."

The hunter glanced over his shoulder, wearing that knowing smirk that Dipper was growing to hate already. "Don't make me carry you."

" _Do it_ " balanced on the tip of his tongue, but Dipper wisely bit the words back, opting for something more rational. "Please don't do this. I won't say anything back at home, just-"

The chain went taut, causing him to lose his balance and collapse on the steps, letting out a sharp yelp. He had only a disoriented half-second before feeling himself being hauled up onto the porch, chain winding around his neck and constricting before he could open his mouth to protest. Above him floated the single golden eye, staring down at him menacingly. "When I tell you to walk, you walk, kid. Got it?"

Dipper nodded to the best of his ability, ears slicked flush against his head in terror once more. He breathed a sigh of relief when the noose loosened, chain falling slack against the wooden floorboards.

He wasted no time in picking himself up and obediently following the hunter over the threshold, trying not to look over his shoulder as the door closed behind him with a loud  _click_  of finality.

The interior of the lodge was no more reassuring than its exterior. The moment they entered the building a confusing source of light flared to life - numerous wall-mounted lamps that appeared to rely on electricity, but Dipper didn't see any wires. He didn't have time to fully process this before he found himself being led forward again. Everything the hunter did was at that consistently brisk pace that kept him from getting a good look at his surroundings. Moving blind severely unnerved him; it stripped him of a form of control he'd barely acknowledged before. The tug after he lingered too long near an old, decaying side table covered with faintly glowing sheets of paper almost resulted in yet another spill and only added further credence to his suspicion that he was being kept in the dark on purpose.

"I suppose I should give you a tour or whatever," the hunter mused. "Try and build up some anticipation for the grand finale. But that's boring. Let's just skip to the best part.  _Dipper_." The reminder that this hunter somehow knew who he was (including some knowledge of the journals) was just as unsettling as everything else going on. He didn't even know this guy's name. As with everything else the asshole probably only used his name to rub in the current imbalance of power between the two. The young cervitaur took a deep breath, internally vowing to face whatever lay ahead without giving the hunter any more of the validation he was craving.

His resolve shattered before the black door.

As doors went it was fairly nondescript, the same dark wood as the lodge's exterior and entrance, like any everyday door in the cabin of a rifle-toting nutjob who might or might not be fully human out in the remote woods of Oregon. What lay within the room beyond that door sent every single nerve in Dipper's body into overdrive, locking his legs into place. The air chilled around him (or maybe it was the other way around), forcing him to clench his teeth to keep them from chattering. The human bits of his psyche faded into the shadows before the strength of the now petrified prey instincts throwing up a continual stream of warning signs.

_There is death here. There is death beyond this door. Do not enter. Death. Death death death you're going to die like whatever died before you, this is the abyss kid and you're teetering on the fucking edge. Stay away. Run. Run run run run run RUN RUN_

The words twisted into something primal, single overwhelming feeling of dread. His eyes glazed over,  and Dipper heard his voice from a distance. "I can't go in there."

Instead of flying into another fit of anger the hunter turned to look at him, feigning disappointment. "Aww, why not? It's my masterpiece, kid. I never get to show it off to anyone else. You're lucky, you know that?" Dipper shuddered at the hand running over his head in a mockery of affection. "Very lucky."

He wasn't entirely sure he agreed with that statement. It stank of rot and decay and stagnation and just his proximity to it threatened to finally force the meager contents of his stomach from earlier out into the open.

"Now  _walk_." The unspoken threat of a repeat of earlier hung in the air.

"Please don't make me go in there," Dipper outright whimpered, dignity taking the backseat for the moment. As expected, the hunter reached for the chain again; however, instead of choking him the man grinned, kicking open the door. "Get in there, kid. I'm not going to say it again."

One hoof after the other. The darkened room beckoned like a black hole. One hoof, then the other. He approached the door gingerly, heart rate speeding out of control. Just as he lifted a foreleg to cross the threshold the hunter shoved him through the doorway, slamming the door behind them.

One by one, the wall lights came to life, revealing more and more of the oppressive space. Once it was partially illuminated, the hunter gestured towards the wall theatrically. "Welcome to the trophy room! That's sort of a working title. I was going to go all fancy and call it the menagerie or something but that implies a little less death."

Dipper had long been expecting to see a display of the hunter's handiwork, but this...

There were indeed heads mounted on the wall - at least thirty, and a variety of species ranging from deer to mountain lion to wolf to creatures he didn't believe were local. Not all of the species were identifiable, and a couple looked for all the world like grotesque combinations of animals that were not physically analogous to each other in the slightest. The hunter had obviously gone all out with the taxidermy; each mounted head's mouth remained open, glass eyes full of mindless panic. They looked as if they'd been screaming. Were screaming. Their fear sent Dipper to his knees, wishing his arms weren't still bound so he could cover his ears against the ghostly outcry of dozens of heads severed from countless innocent bodies.

The hunter leered at him; his jagged excuses for teeth gleamed in the light cast by the wall fixtures. "Aren't they beautiful?" He exclaimed, swelling with pride. "I'm  _really_  proud of  _this_  one."

It was the severed head of a full-grown stag, replete with impressive multi-pronged antlers polished to a perfect shine. Instead of a single rack two sets of antlers crested its head; the overall effect presented a majestic animal twisted into something unnatural. The expression of horror frozen on its face forever mirrored Dipper's.

His voice cracked as it had a year and a half ago, threaded with a note of budding hysteria. "It's screaming. They're  _all_  screaming."

"Of course they are! I'm the last thing every one of these faces ever saw."

Dipper nodded slowly, lightheaded. "Fair enough." You really couldn't argue with a statement like that.

"There's more to my collection than this," the hunter announced, rather cheerfully for someone surrounded by severed animal parts. For the first time since passing beyond the black door Dipper allowed himself to take in the rest of the room. There were numerous jars of teeth, ranging from the flat pegs of herbivores to the tapered canines of their counterparts. The jars of teeth littered the room, alongside a collection of bones and other things that Dipper decided he didn't want to inspect further. It occurred to him that Mabel might have had something to say about this room, the various macabre components working together to form a pretty cohesive display of interior design.

What came out of his mouth was an extremely unhelpful, "Those are teeth."

"Yep!"

"Why?" Dipper asked. He realized that this was a stupid question to ask a guy with a woodland morgue in his house, but no further intelligent commentary was forthcoming for the moment.

"Because teeth are cool." The hunter reached for one of the jars, screwing the lid off and fishing out a couple of the discolored herbivore teeth. "Also it's a lot of fun to remove them while the animal's still conscious, right after you pluck out the claws." Dipper took another look at the jars, noting that two or three of them were not teeth. He supposed those were claws. This guy really needed a better organization AND labeling system so his claws remained separate from his teeth. This train of thought was clearly insane, but so was everything else. "They get this pathetic, pleading look in their eyes, watching you strip away their last method of defense. Claws are kinda lame, though." He extended a gloved hand with three teeth in the palm. "Deer teeth! For you, kid."

Dipper glanced at the teeth, then back up at the person offering them to him. "...I already have some."

"Nah, yours are still human. Human teeth are stupid." Nonplussed by the rejection, the hunter returned the teeth to the jar. "Although...I don't have any  _cervitaur_  teeth yet." He reached for the knife at his waist, drawing it from its holder. "Wanna make a contribution to the cause?"

Dipper paled, taking a couple of steps back.

The hunter chuckled. "Don't worry, I'm keeping you intact for awhile." The knife made quick work of the ropes binding Dipper's arms behind his back; once freed he stretched, overjoyed to have use of them again. "I haven't gotten to the best part, though! I'd thought about just throwing you in a cage in the basement until the isolation started getting to you and made you desperate, but that's kind of cliché, and you might get lonely."

"That's the entire point of isolation," Dipper murmured, still completely transfixed by the decor.

"Yeah, I know. That's why you're going to stay in here so these guys can keep you company. Told you you were lucky!"

The news broke through Dipper's trance, eyes widening at the prospect of sleeping anyway near those remains. He backed up against the door, feeling the splintering wood digging into his injured flank. "No. I can't. I can't sleep in here," he stammered.

"Oh I think you misunderstood." This time he did strain at the chain while being reeled in like a fish on a hook, until he was close enough for the hunter to seize the collar around his neck. "You're going to  _live_  in here until I say otherwise. You should probably thank me."

"No!" Dipper cried, struggling against the man's grip. Thus far he'd remained compliant and reasonably respectful out of fear, but this was too much. "I'm not staying here. You can't  _fucking_  make me, you..." He trailed off, brain finally catching up to his mouth.

The hunter paused, looking at him expectantly. "Go on, kid. Don't leave me hanging."

This close he could see the teeth again, those of a beast instead of a man, the wolfish grin, the golden eye that glistened with psychotic glee.

"...monster," Dipper whispered.

"That's right. Remember that... _pet._ "

Once the hunter finally departed Dipper spent the rest of the day, and his first night away from home, sobbing in the corner of room facing the wall until he managed to completely exhaust himself and passed out for several hours. He didn't dream.

* * *

 

 The trophy room wasn't  _just_  a gallery of remains, he discovered a day later when the hunter made a reappearance with food for him in one hand and a raccoon carcass in the other. The section of the space that had gone unlit before revealed a taxidermy workshop of sorts, and there were a handful of assorted furnishings common to a den or rec room: the sofa in the corner that he took to sleeping on, a minuscule closet that turned out to be a small bathroom (Dipper never saw the hunter use it, but the idea that it might have existed solely for his benefit both indicated that the guy really had been watching him for awhile while planning this and creeped him out even more), among other things. On one hand, it made being trapped in the room and restricted to as far as the chain attached to the collar - affixed to a metal bar jutting from the wall when he was alone - marginally less unbearable than it would have been being relegated to such a space with no human accommodations whatsoever. On the other it meant that the hunter spent a fair amount of time in the room with him for various reasons - the only upside of which involved the chain being unlocked, allowing him to move around freely.

The hunter's presence made the taxidermied and preserved animal parts marginally less horrifying by comparison.

It wasn't as if the guy was starving him, save for the couple of times Dipper lost his shit and snapped at him or failed to respond to some request or the other leading to the hunter either withholding or delaying his next meal. This wasn't the end of the world given that he was barely hungry anyway. And thankfully he seemed to understand that the cervitaur was fairly fragile and avoided actually physically harming him much aside from dragging him around on the chain or a couple of incidents where the hunter took out his frustration on him in the form of shoving him off the sofa or the like, but even that wasn't too bad, all things considered. Both living in Gravity Falls and spending a couple of years as a deer surrounded by people and things that could and probably would have eaten him under different conditions had desensitized Dipper to a lot of things.  But the dehumanization aspect of interacting with the hunter was a demoralizing experience that left him too dispirited to do much in the way of planning his escape afterwards.

The hunter made a point of exerting control over him whenever he could, from forcibly moving him wherever he wanted via the lead or simply scaring the shit out of him. It wasn't hard to scare a deer, but he went out of his way to terrorize Dipper as a person regardless of his insistence on treating him like a pet. The worst example of this involved wrapping the chain around one of the work table legs and insisting on giving him a brief lesson in taxidermy. This resulted in Dipper actually having a full anxiety attack, huddling beneath the table in a shivering, hyperventilating heap. The hunter got a real kick out of that one.

That said, he almost preferred the hunter's company to being alone. When he was by himself at night, huddled in a room where he couldn't see the night sky with all of the screaming mounts staring at him and the claws and teeth and pelts strewn around in the dim light, he thought of home. He imagined Mabel in her tank crying when he didn't come back that day, and recalled carting her around with the harness from Soos and napping beside one of her kiddie pools to keep her company and bringing her treats that were now inconvenient for her to retrieve herself. He thought about his nice, soft bed, and Grunkle Stan's horrible attempts at cooking and hooting at the television while watching bum fights, massive bulk knocking over everything in the vicinity. He thought about Wendy, who he still considered one of the most beautiful girls he'd ever seen, although they'd settled into just being close friends rather well. He missed Soos and his dedication to taking care of Mabel and himself; he missed the quirky atmosphere of the town that had changed very little even when its inhabitants gained extra legs or fur or shifted into any number of monstrosities. He missed Pacifica, now that they'd become friends as well, and their occasionally awkward interactions with each other that led to her covering for her embarrassment with feigned indifference then smiling at him when she thought his back was turned. It was nowhere near as awkward as he'd been around Wendy, but some days it came close.

He dreadfully missed the journal that now served as a security blanket.

After a few days of emotional and mental turmoil, he realized that he couldn't stay here forever and maintain his sanity. He was sleep deprived from cowering on the sofa beneath a blanket when left to his own devices in the dark and his nerves were frayed. The thought of actually spending an extended amount of time in either the trophy room or with the hunter himself made him made him physically ill. Perhaps it would have been easier to feign conciliation, fake it for the time being or make some attempt to adapt, but that required embracing the loss of humanity being forced on him by his circumstances. Dipper refused to give in to that, even temporarily, without a fight.

That made escape planning his only option. Towards the end of the week he managed to work up the courage to explore the room more thoroughly both in search of something he could use and to further assess his range of motion. Even had he been capable of reaching it his body outright refused to let him approach the workbench in the corner when he was unchained and under supervision, and it was out of range otherwise - which definitely explained why the hunter didn't bother to hide any of the tools in plain sight. Hell, the asshole was probably mocking him by doing so. His legs buckled beneath him whenever he got too close and the stench of death sent the part of him that was all deer into hysterics.

As far as he could tell from simple observation the door wasn't locked with a key; he could hear the hunter approaching from elsewhere in the lodge, and always made the effort to listen for the clink of a ring of keys and the soft click indicating the shifting of the tumbler within a traditional lock. There may have been some kind of latch, or perhaps the door wasn't even locked to begin with. He couldn't reach it anyway with the chain and the last loop of said chain just happened to run through the buckle at the center of the collar around his neck. All of the blades lay out of his reach, only accessible to him when actually trying to ferret one away was out of the question.

The answer came during a moment of idle fidgeting with the collar unhappily while bundled up on the sofa.  _Deer hide_.

He'd pushed that information to the side the first day, a suppressed memory that now returned at full force. His fingertips probed the seam where the leather met his flesh. There was just enough give to let him slip a finger beneath the collar, and the material was firm but not particularly thick.

Now he just needed a knife...to cut off the collar so he could reach the knives. Catch-22.

Dipper groaned, slamming his forehooves against the wall in frustration and causing the jars of teeth on the table beside him to rattle.

Teeth  _and_  claws.

It took a good half hour to psych himself up enough to inspect the jars up close, and even then he shuddered in disgust while doing so. There were a handful of jars within reach, but only one contained claws. His ears twitched, on alert for approaching footsteps. Nothing. He reached hesitantly for the jar and lifted it into his arms, carrying it back to the sofa.

The selection inside was mostly disappointing, either too blunt or too small to attempt to bore a hole into leather (or any other material, really).

There.

His breath hitched in his throat with excitement as he pulled out a curved claw with a wickedly tapered tip; he could easily tell this one was from a mountain lion.

This was it.

Dipper took a deep breath, trying to steady his heart rate. This was a chance he might not have later down the line, and he couldn't afford to fuck it up. Not now.

He hid the claw behind a wastebin in the bathroom and returned the jar to the table, nudging it as close into its original position as he could manage.

Almost on cue the hunter's boots clumping against the wood sounded from the next room. Dipper leapt to his hooves, retreating to his side of the room and hiding beneath his blanket on the sofa, praying to whatever powers that might be listening that he didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

* * *

 

The plan took off on a far better note than he would've expected. This honestly struck Dipper as more than a little creepy in that regard, but he was so shaken after that past evening that he couldn't bring himself to care. 

He'd quickly grown used to his wayward housemate bringing home things he didn't want to see, especially things that were recently alive (or portions of them), but this time his newest acquisition set Dipper's teeth chattering almost immediately. Where the fuck did this guy keep finding deer heads?

_Probably attached_   _to_   _a deer, dude._

"Hey kid, I brought you something!" The hunter announced his arrival just as cheerfully as always. He noticed Dipper staring at the head in revolted fascination. "Not  _all_  of it. I don't want to spoil you or anything."

Instead of tossing the head at him the way Dipper expected him to, he placed the head on the floor and weighted it down beneath his heel, causing a lump of gore to spurt from the neck. He gripped one of the antlers in both hands and  _tore it out of the deer's skull as if it were nothing._  A few drops of blood dotted the wooden floor as he held it aloft triumphantly. "Hold this for me while I grab the other one!"

Dipper did not do as he was asked. Instead he huddled beneath his blanket, doing his best to envision anything other than what he'd just seen. He forced the image of Mabel and himself before the legs and tail and fins, sitting in front of the TV watching the shittiest sci-fi movie they could find. Not in existence, because there was always something worse than the worst thing you could imagine. But the worst that it  _could_  be given the circumstances. Removed from them things could always get worse, and they usually did.

The blanket was ripped away, revealing the hunter looming over him with a bloody antler in each hand. "What's wrong? I took this one down for you!"

Dipper let out a terrified bleat, not unlike an actual deer, falling off of the sofa and fleeing into the corner.  _Mabel, think of Mabel and Wendy and Soos and Grunkle Stan and Pacifica and-_

"Honestly, I try to do something nice for you and you freak out." The hunter had followed him, cornering him with his newest acquisition. With no way to push past him and nowhere to go even if he succeeded and doing so Dipper went limp, chewing on his lip again and ignoring the sensation of deer blood dampening his hair and coursing its way along the incline of his jaw when the hunter positioned one antler at either side of his head, next to his undeveloped nubs. The man regarded him with a nod of approval. "Not bad. You know, one of these days you're gonna have a nice set of these yourself."

_You're not here. Mabel's knitting a sweater with reindeer on it while you remind her that it's summer._

"Technically you're supposed to shed them on your own every year, but I don't do patience." The hunter winked at him. "Especially when it's something I  _want_. You're the trophy that's gonna keep on giving."

Dipper's teeth sliced through the skin of his lower lip yet again, but at least the blood trickling down his chin was his.

The moment the hunter departed for the night he sequestered himself in the bathroom, fishing out the claw and beginning the lengthy process of cutting the collar off. There was a mirror in the bathroom, and Dipper used it to guide his actions so he didn't accidentally stab himself in the neck. Although that  _was_  a viable escape plan, he thought grimly.

As it turned out deer hide wasn't too difficult to bore a hole into. He couldn't just rip the collar off, but once he made a series of small holes and worried the material between them into a suitable amount of pliability by repeatedly scraping the tip of the claw over them they began to give. After probably two hours of effort the band fell away, landing on the floor beside the chain.

He'd never fully acknowledged how much he hated that fucking collar, not until now when he could feel the elation of being able to move without that weight on him he could admit it.  _You're not out of the woods yet_. The joke was terrible, but he smiled anyway for the first time that week.

The first order of business was to inspect the door. He still had his backpack, thankfully; after refilling his water bottle from the sink that wasn't a potential issue; a couple of years of roaming the woods had done a good job of showing him what was edible and what wasn't - he personally  gagged at the thought of eating leaves but this was survival, not a recreational field trip with a stop to visit the creepy murderer living by himself in a cabin full of severed heads on the schedule. He knew he needed  _some_  method of self-defense. The knives at on the taxidermy workbench called to him, but that would require approaching it on his own and just the thought raised the fur along his spine. Anyway he didn't know how to knife fight. As a human his best defense was problem-solving through mental effort, and as a deer his most employed method of self-defense was  _running_.

After this was over he'd need to rethink that strategy.

Unable to come up with a solution for that and unwilling to waste any more time that he would need for traveling and putting as much distance between himself and the hunter as possible, he turned his attention to the door. After listening for any activity in the next room long enough to satisfy his apprehension he placed a hand against the wood, applying just the smallest amount of pressure. There were no visible latches or locks, and pushing it gently resulted in it swinging open with no resistance whatsoever. The door  _had_  been open the entire time. That  _asshole._

The lodge was quiet, and appeared to be deserted; he supposed that meant that the hunter was either in the basement or the upper floor. Dipper wasn't sure if the man even slept (he had to, didn't he?) but whatever the case he wasn't present. His heart ached at the thought of leaving the journal behind, but it would be far too risky to go looking for it.

...unless it was right there in front of him, sitting atop the glowing sheets of paper he'd noticed several days ago.

Dipper paused with his hand still on the door. This had officially gone from creepy to  _creepy_. It had to be a trap, right? There was no way it could be this easy.

...except it really hadn't. Cutting the collar off with a mountain lion claw wasn't an obvious solution at all, and more than likely this carelessness was unintentional instead of deliberate. He'd spent most of the week crying and cringing; shit, maybe the hunter hadn't taken any precautions because he didn't expect Dipper to take any  _risks_. And as before, getting out of the cabin was just the beginning. Making it back to the woods he knew and finding his way home (or at least to where he assumed his family was searching for him) was another story.

_I'm coming, Mabel._

He seized the journal and slid it into his pack, ignoring the stack of paper. At any other time he would have been curious to the point of distraction but there wasn't time for that, not now. His hooves clicked lightly against the wooden planks as he inched his way towards the front door, but he could barely hear them over the pounding of his own heart. It was secured with a simple latch that could be easily lifted; Dipper made short work of doing so and opening the door  _just_  enough to slip outside on the porch, breathing fresh air for the first time in a  _week_.

And then the prey psyche kicked into gear, setting human thought on the backburner again in favor of getting a move on. He nimbly leapt over the couple of steps and landed in the grass gracefully before heeding the hunter's advice and running for his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: No actual woodland creatures or adorkable deer boys were harmed in the making of this fanfic.


End file.
